He scratched his chin and looked at her. "I don't know what I want from you. I'm all...upside down and inside out."
She knew exactly what he meant and she had far less excuse, being older and ergo wiser. "Show me your master's plans first then."
"And have you run off to tell your mistress without giving me that kiss?"
"You haven't got any plans with you." He didn't even have a coat and hat.
"But I know where they are. I can take you to them."
"Why the devil would I trust you?"
With a deep sigh, he put both hands behind his back, leaning forward slightly. "You'll have to take a chance on me, won't you?" When she said nothing, he added, "If I were a ne'er do well rogue, I would have taken that kiss already and not waited. Lord knows, you've tempted me enough. But if you give me a chance, you'll find I'm a good man and honest, Persey. When I make a promise, I keep it."
It was several years since she was last swept up in a fervor while telling one of her stories, but today, under the warm sun, playing this masquerade of an uncomplicated housemaid, she felt a similar excitement fluttering through her veins. For just those few moments, flirting with this handsome young man, Persey had forgotten her troubles— how she was an unwanted soul on the estate, merely tolerated; a woman past her prime in the eyes of some; a woman past her usefulness; a wanderer who had, perhaps, stayed too long in one place. She had grown too fond of Holbrooke estate, become too entangled with the people there, and now these grounds were to be torn up, gutted before her eyes.
But standing here with this young man who made no secret of his attraction to her, life was simple again. Joyous. Soaring.
He flattered her vanity, she supposed grimly.
Plain and simple: Long-Legged Meg was having too much fun, of a sort she had not enjoyed in several years. So she didn't tell him who she was, because she didn't want the game to end yet.
Besides, she had understood, all her life, that when a good day, a fine spell of weather, or an intriguing opportunity came along, one should make the most of it. Because there might never be another.
"Oh, very well," she muttered, even as the practical side of her mind screamed at her to stop playing the game— that it could only end badly. She did not want to stop. Not yet.
She selfishly wanted that kiss and to the devil with consequences.
He still waited, leaning over her, hands behind his back.
"You may kiss me," she added, turning her face and offering her cheek. "Make haste then."
Rather than take her cheek, however, he placed his hand to the left side of her face— the side she had turned away from him— and moved it back again. Only then did he slowly lower his mouth.
To her lips.
She should have protested this much intimacy. She could have reminded him that all she'd offered was her left cheek, not her lips. She could have said many things. There was plenty of time, for it felt to her as if he proceeded so leisurely that a snail might have passed between them in the time it took for his lips to reach hers. But she was oddly slow to object.
It had, after all, been more than two years since a man kissed her on the lips— and that last kiss was delivered by her weakened, aged husband, shortly before he fell ill for the last time. Jebediah's vigor had waned a few months before he finally took to his bed and never rose from it again. With tears under her lashes she recalled that last kiss and the effort it had taken her husband.
But there was nothing ailing about this man's kiss.
He waylaid her lips and her mental protest in a powerful manner that stripped them bare and left nothing to hide behind. For a woman who had lived the past twenty years in a lie, it was terrifying.
In that moment she heard footsteps racing along the gravel and quickly stepped back. As she bent to retrieve her fallen hat from the path, he did the same, and he got there first, apparently in possession of swifter reflexes. He handed it to her, just as Lady Honoria appeared around the bend.
"There you are, mama! I've been looking everywhere. I should have known to look for you here, I suppose. Did you know that Albert has hired a—"
The gravel crackled and spat under the young girl's feet as she came to a sharp halt, seeing the man standing there.
"Garden designer," she finished.
White-faced, he looked at Persey as she swiped her straw hat from his outstretched hand, and his lips parted for a startled exhale. "Mama?"
* * * *
He stared at the temptress, awaiting her explanation and feeling slightly dizzy in the sun.
After a pause, while she set her hat back on her head and— he suspected— gathered her composure, she said firmly, "This is Lady Honoria Foyle, Lord Holbrooke's sister."
The girl exclaimed, "Oh, Master Radcliffe and I have already met, mama. We were introduced yesterday evening, when he arrived for dinner."
Now it was her turn to be startled. Good. Damn her! She tipped her hat back again, because it kept slipping forward, as if someone with a larger head had stretched it out of shape. "Master Radcliffe?"
"Yes." He scowled. "But I'm not sure I understand. Who are you, madam?"
"This is the Dowager Marchioness of Holbrooke, of course," Lady Honoria chirped merrily, "my mama. Or, rather, my stepmama. You didn't meet her last night because she wasn't at dinner."
All manner of curse words floated through his mind, but as his temper rose he held it in check. Just. He bit his tongue and tasted blood.
So this was no lovely household maid with whom he might flirt without impunity. This was the very woman he'd been warned against.
"That's right," the temptress confirmed archly. "I'm the meddlesome old goat."
Young Lady Honoria posed awkwardly amid the rose bushes, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, fiddling with the ribbons of her bonnet, while her "mama" tapped a pair of pruning shears against her gloved hand and added, "Well, I'm sure my invitation to dinner yesterday evening was mislaid somehow, Lady Honoria. But no matter. His lordship warned me about the forthcoming improvements this morning when I called in at breakfast."
Joss finally found his tongue again. "I was warned about you too, madam," he replied steadily. "Warned that you might attempt to distract me, but I had failed to realize by which method. I didn't take the marquess quite as seriously as I should have." He tried on a smile, but it felt strained and must look it too.
She protested, but not very convincingly. "It was your idea entirely that I show you this part of the garden and I—" She stopped abruptly, glancing at Lord Holbrooke's young sister. "You merely took me by surprise."
"Likewise, madam."
He was disappointed. Couldn't help it. She was a woman far above him in consequence after all, and she had deliberately deceived him. Obviously intending to pry information out of him about the plans for Holbrooke, she had flirted and pouted. Thought him a fool.
Which he had been.
This, he thought crossly, was precisely why he never tried flirting. He was not good at it and even skilled men invariably got themselves into a fix when they gave a woman too much of their attention.
Mama. He couldn't quite recover from the shock of hearing her called that. He'd naturally assumed the widow of the previous marquess would be an older woman. Much older. Certainly he could have expected nothing like this vision in her crushed hat, ragged pinafore and over-sized gardening gloves, with her hair so simply dressed, her complexion colored only by the fresh air. She was not like any noblewoman he'd ever met. She'd confused him, dazzled him. Deliberately misled him.
Why would she let him kiss her? That was a cruelty he should not forgive. But women of her class, naturally, cared nothing for the feelings of men like him. He was merely a servant, a beast of burden in her eyes.
"You weren't in any hurry to leave my company," he pointed out, his voice surprisingly calm considering the turmoil he felt inside. "Asking me questions about the plans for these grounds."
"Why shouldn't I ask? I know there ar
e people in this house who think I have no right to be informed. But unfortunately for them, I have no intention of being kept in the dark. When one stumbles around without candles, one tends to become injured. For my own good, and to save bruising, I keep my world well lit." She blinked rapidly, catching her breath. "You might have told me who you were."
"You might have told me who you were, madam." Why? Why had she let him kiss her? He couldn't get over it.
"And have you lie to me about your plans just to keep me in ignorance? The old crone in the dower house who might easily be managed?"
Joss shook his head, more at his own foolishness than at her comment, but she strode up to him and exclaimed in a low voice, "As you see I am far from a spent force. Do not think to render me a negligible one either, sir."
He looked down at her for a long moment, knuckles resting on his hips, with the lilac he'd stolen earlier from her basket curled inside his fist. Slowly he let his temper even out as he studied those soft pink lips again and recalled the sweetness of their taste. "To render you an insignificant power, madam?" he muttered finally. "I wouldn't know where to begin."
She blinked up at him through the mottled shadow cast by the pattern of holes in her hat brim. "Good. We know where we both stand."
"We most certainly do. Now I've seen for myself that I must keep my wits about me. As my men must keep theirs too. Or else you'll be distracting us all." Is that why she did it? To make him so unsettled he wouldn't know whether he was coming or going? Clever. Very clever.
"You're a young man—all flash and fashion, all quickness and thrusting..." Apparently losing her grip on that thought, she stretched for another large assumption. "You have no appreciation for history and the work of your elders; the time and care that has gone into this estate. All that is meaningless to you. What could you possibly know of tradition? I daresay any new idea that overtakes you will be inflicted upon these grounds."
"I take exception, madam, to this dwelling upon my age in years," he muttered. "As I daresay you would take the same if I continually mentioned yours."
But she did not hear him. "You're a boy, for pity's sake!" Her eyes glittered in the speckled shadow of her hat brim. "As I believe I just proved."
Ah yes, she thought he was young and gullible, easily led by parts other than his brain. Perhaps he had not behaved in a very professional manner, but how could he help himself with such temptation before him? He was a red-blooded man who worked hard and played very little. Clearly he ought to play more often, or else things like this happened and mad, impulsive errors were made. All because he'd thought he found the woman he'd been waiting for.
She marched before him in a tight circle, the words streaming out of her. "I have managed the care of these grounds for eight years and kept them to a standard approved by the last marquess."
"Who is no longer here."
"The head-gardeners, Beamish and Quigley, never take issue with my ideas, never argue."
"I'm sure they wouldn't dare."
"I fail to see the necessity of bringing in a new man to fix what is not broken. Merely because he is considered fashionable."
"Well, it's not your concern anymore, is it, madam?"
"You're nothing more than a thief, stealing away my purp— stealing away all that is beautiful, timeless treasures, maintained for generations."
"I can see you're over-excited. Should you sit down, madam? Take to your bed, perhaps? Frail nerves in women of all ages are often aggravated by bright sun."
"Frail nerves?" She stopped circling and marched up to him again. "My nerves have never been frail. I fight for what I believe in and against injustice, to protect this estate and preserve these gardens the way my poor dear husband wanted."
"Hmm." He sighed and brought one hand up to tug thoughtfully on his earlobe. "The words the marquess used to describe you were stubborn, I believe, meddling and relentless."
She closed her lips tightly and glared, her eyes now containing a very heated blue flame.
"I also heard that you fight to the death," he added, "burying your victims in this very secret garden." He quirked an eyebrow. "I dismissed that as a fanciful tale, but I begin to suspect it might be true. I've seen now how you fight and the weapons you use." He swept her with a steady, stern perusal. "A great many men must have fallen at your feet."
Then he smiled. For two reasons. One: he suddenly found he couldn't stay angry, and two: because she looked confused now, disconcerted as well as irritated. Hopefully he had unsettled her as much as she had done to him.
And at least he'd had that kiss. How could he stay enraged while he still had a taste of her on his lips? Joss remembered suddenly what it felt like to be a little boy, always in one scrape or another and not caring about the punishment he must suffer later, as long as he had his pleasure before it.
He offered her the lilac he'd stolen earlier from her basket. Crumpled and heated from being closed within his fist, it let off a rich, sweet fragrance that filled his senses. Just as she did, now that he'd crumpled her too. "You'll need this back. I wouldn't want to be accused of stealing that too. Your ladyship."
"Keep it," she said in a prim manner that seemed overly dramatic. "It's spoiled now in any case, crushed by your uncouth hand." An actress could not have delivered the line with greater dramatic fervor.
At that moment he thought about pressing the lilac into her bodice, into the valley between those two rounded temptations currently rising and falling with a quickness that suggested their mistress suffered some ailment of the lung.
What would she do? Slap his face? He'd let her. Like that kiss, it would still be worth the punishment.
However, the eyes of young Lady Honoria Foyle were upon them both and he may be only a humble "uncouth" gardener, but he knew his boundaries. When he was being watched.
More footsteps now approached along the gravel, churning it up at an urgent pace. "Master Radcliffe? Master Radcliffe!"
It was Lady Holbrooke, the current marchioness. Her silk embroidered skirt lifted to speed her steps along the path, she dashed through the door in the hedge. Although she did not address the woman in the tattered straw hat, or even look at her, she was plainly aware of that presence, and eager to separate Josias from it. "I must talk to you, Master Radcliffe, about my little temple. I must know where you plan to put it."
He let her lead him back through the labyrinth, but found it almost impossible to pay any attention to what she said while that other woman still possessed his mind, hovering like the deep, heady fragrance of the lilac that he crumpled in his fist again.
One thing he soon realized was that the current marchioness did not know her way around the labyrinth quite so well as her predecessor.
Chapter Seven
"Isn't he splendid?" Honoria exclaimed, hurrying to keep up with Persey who now headed home to the lodge at a brisk march. "I think he's the most frightfully gorgeous fellow I ever beheld."
"Honoria, you remind me of how silly a girl of eighteen can be. It's been so long since I was one myself that I have a tendency to forget."
"You surely cannot say he isn't handsome, mama."
And she couldn't, so she let that go unremarked upon. Instead, she said, "I petitioned your brother this morning on your behalf, as you asked, but for now he remains immoveable on the subject of your suitors. He maintains that the two gentlemen he's hand-picked for you should be enough and, even if your maidenly heart does not feel a quickened pitter-pat for either, you must make the best of it." As he did, she thought crossly, remembering the day her stepson announced he would marry Araminta, when she heard him recite his future bride's pedigree through several generations, but could not recall the color of her eyes.
Honoria groaned. "I should sooner die than choose either of those men Albert dragged here to meet me. One is old enough to be my father and has the most unshapely calves when wearing knee breeches in the evening. The other snuffles like a pig when he eats, and prefers the poetry of Pope to Anne K
illigrew. Have you ever heard such a thing, mama?"
"The mind boggles."
"Besides, now I think...I think I am in love with Master Radcliffe."
Persey gave her stepdaughter a sharp look. "You've only just met him, Honoria, and so far all he has to recommend him is that he's handsome. I would not crush your imaginative and romantic spirit for anything, Honoria, but might I suggest love came a little hastily?"
"Oh, mama! I thought you of anyone would understand, being of a passionate temperament."
She was not certain where Albert and Honoria came by their idea of her being a romantically addled fool. Apparently they'd missed her practical, sensible side.
Not that it had been much on display today.
Thank goodness she and the gardener weren't caught kissing! She was annoyed with herself for being so careless. How the devil would she have explained that to her impressionable stepdaughter? For those dreadful, heart-seizing seconds, she'd been swept away in her silly masquerade as a simple housemaid, just as forcefully as she'd been swept up into his arms before that.
But it wasn't really a masquerade, was it? That was just the trouble. When he kissed her, she was her true self for the first time in more than twenty years and it confused her. It was as if she suddenly found herself on a theatre stage and had forgotten her lines. In her anxiety she bumped into the painted scenery, knocking it down, causing chaos.
She thought of Albert's words to her that morning. "I understand some folk have less capability of maintaining self-control, but only you appear to think such failure worthy of celebration rather than censure—."
Honoria's voice interrupted her thoughts. "But he's very talented, mama. They call him a prodigy because he has been so successful while still young."
"Is that so?" she replied flatly. Oh, he was clever alright, she thought glumly. He was wily, knew how to tempt a woman into misbehaving. A woman old enough to know better.
She was ashamed of herself for giving in to temptation, abandoning good sense for those few breathless, stolen seconds of something...naughty. Now, because of that delay, her cut flowers wilted in the sun. As did she. They were both desperately in need of refreshment, but hers must be something stronger than water.
The Peculiar Folly of Long Legged Meg Page 8